Preparing for Google Associate Cloud Engineer Certification Exam? But, have no clue where to begin. And, many questions must be floating in your mind regarding the difficulty level of the exam. Also, the extra pressure we all face, with anxiety level touching the sky and heart pounding. Since we all wish to hit the right chord. Not to worry though. We all go through this time every once in a while. Therefore, we have a curated a list of all learning resources that will help you qualify the examination. But first of all, remember to take a deep breath and relax your mind, body and soul. Because we have got you covered.
Testpreptraining is focused to provide our readers with the most authentic and genuine information. So, you don’t have to worry. Since our team is constantly researching on the exam format and important topics one must be well versed in. Wih our preparatory guide and practice sets, many have qualified the exam and already become Google Associate Cloud Engineer. And, we wish the same for you as well. Therefore, in this article, we’re going to provide you with all the high quality and up to date content for your preparation.
Not to mention, we’ll prepare you according to our many past experiences. Here we will go through all the exam-oriented online course and practice tests for you to pass the Google Cloud Associate Engineer certification exam in the first attempt. So, let’s first begin with the basic introduction to the exam as well as understand the best guide to fall upon without any hesitation.
Exam Overview: Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Certification
An associate cloud engineer handles deployment of the application, monitoring operations, and administration of enterprise solutions. Not to mention, the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Certification enhances the candidate’s capabilities. In addition, the certification assists in advancing skills for using the command-line interface to achieve common platform-based tasks. So that one or more deployed solutions that leverage Google-managed or self-managed services on Google Cloud can be maintained.
Moreover, you can also obtain credibility as a Google associate cloud engineer with a certification in your credentials. Most importantly, one can deal with solutions with the help of self-managed or Google-managed services on Google Cloud.
The Associate Cloud Engineer exam evaluates the candidate’s ability for the following:
- First of all, setting up a cloud solution environment
- Secondly, planning and configuring a cloud solution
- Subsequently, deploying and implementing a cloud solution
- Furthermore, ensuring the successful operation of a cloud solution
- Lastly, configuring access and security
Exam Details
Now, that you understand what the Google Associate Cloud Engineer Certification is all about. We’ll move on to the next most important aspect of the certification i.e. exam details. Before venturing on to any exam, it is very crucial for any candidate to go through the exam details. And, perhaps, if you’re that very serious about acquiring the certification, you won’t even skip this section. So, without further due, let’s begin.
Google Associate Cloud Engineer Prerequisites
First thing first, always check whether you’re eligible for this certification or not. That’s the key aspect, otherwise, it’s all in vain. Understand, if you’re someone who wishes to pursue a career as a GCP associate cloud engineer must choose this certification. Since this is a beginner level exam. Therefore, anyone who even wishes to start his/her career Google Cloud Platform technologies can opt for this certification.
Further, we have a list of candidate who can appear for this certification exam-
- Firstly, any candidate associated with the IT industry
- Subsequently, Data architects, Developers, and Data Engineers
- Further, any individual accountable for managing Google cloud operations
So, before you start with the Google Associate Cloud Engineer Certification, make sure you fall into the above-mentioned categories.
Basic Exam Details
It’s always a good sign when you’re sitting in the examination hall and you’re already familiar with the exam format and basic information regarding the same. Not only does it boosts self-confidence in you at that very moment but it also reduces the stress. In the same vein, let’s begin and understand all the basic exam details for the Google Associate Cloud Engineer Certification.
The exam consists of around 50 questions which must be completed within 120 minutes (2hour). Candidates may come across multiple choice and multiple select. As far as the language of the examination, then candidates must be familiar with the following languages- English, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Indonesian. Moreover, the registration fee is USD 125.
However, there are no particular prerequisites for the associate cloud engineer certification. But, the candidate must have hands-on experience with GCP for more than six months. One must always be familiar with the passing score of the exam as it provides an extra edge to the candidate. But, in this case, the passing score is confidential, and candidates receive only ‘Pass’ or ‘Fail’ results without any detailed score or percentage.
Course Outline
The course outline forms the most important aspect of the examination. Since the course outline is going to let you all understand the exam objective on a deeper level. Therefore, one must review the course outline so that he/she has a clear idea about all the topics to be well versed with.
The Google Associate Cloud Engineer Course comprises of the five mains domains which are as follows-
1. Setting up a cloud solution environment (17.5%)
1.1 Setting up cloud projects and accounts. Activities include:
- Creating a resource hierarchy
- Applying organizational policies to the resource hierarchy
- Granting members IAM roles within a project
- Managing users in Cloud Identity (manually and automated) (GCP Documentation: Cloud Identity)
- Enabling APIs within projects (GCP Documentation: Enabling an API in your Google Cloud project)
- Provisioning and setting up products in Google Cloud’s operations suite
1.2 Managing billing configuration. Activities include:
- Creating one or more billing accounts (GCP Documentation: Create, modify, or close your Cloud Billing account)
- Linking projects to a billing account (GCP Documentation: Modify a project’s billing settings)
- Establishing billing budgets and alerts (GCP Documentation: Set budgets and budget alerts)
- Setting up billing exports
1.3 Installing and configuring the command line interface (CLI), specifically the Cloud SDK (e.g., setting the default project).
2. Planning and configuring a cloud solution (17.5%)
2.1 Planning and estimating Google Cloud product use using the Pricing Calculator
2.2 Planning and configuring compute resources. Considerations include:
- Selecting appropriate compute choices for a given workload (e.g., Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions) (GCP Documentation: Choosing the right compute option in GCP: a decision tree)
- Using preemptible VMs and custom machine types as appropriate (GCP Documentation: Custom Machine Types)
2.3 Planning and configuring data storage options. Considerations include:
- Product choice (e.g., Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Firestore, Spanner, Bigtable) (GCP Documentation: Google Cloud products)
- Choosing storage options (e.g., Zonal persistent disk, Regional balanced persistent disk, Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive)
2.4 Planning and configuring network resources. Tasks include:
- Differentiating load balancing options (GCP Documentation: Cloud Load Balancing overview)
- Identifying resource locations in a network for availability (GCP Documentation: Geography and regions)
- Configuring Cloud DNS (GCP Documentation: Cloud DNS )
3. Deploying and implementing a cloud solution (25%)
3.1 Deploying and implementing Compute Engine resources. Tasks include:
- Launching a compute instance using the Google Cloud console and Cloud SDK (gcloud) (e.g., assign disks, availability policy, SSH keys)
- Creating an autoscaled managed instance group using an instance template (GCP Documentation: Creating managed instance groups)
- Generating/uploading a custom SSH key for instances (GCP Documentation: Managing SSH keys in metadata)
- Installing and configuring the Cloud Monitoring and Logging Agent
- Assessing compute quotas and requesting increases (GCP Documentation: Requesting an increase in quota)
3.2 Deploying and implementing Google Kubernetes Engine resources. Tasks include:
- Installing and configuring the command line interface (CLI) for Kubernetes (kubectl)
- Deploying a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster with different configurations including AutoPilot, regional clusters, private clusters, etc.
- Deploying a containerized application to Google Kubernetes Engine (GCP Documentation: Deploying a containerized web application)
- Configuring Google Kubernetes Engine application monitoring and logging (GCP Documentation: Overview of Google Cloud’s operations suite for GKE)
3.3 Deploying and implementing App Engine, Cloud Run, and Cloud Functions resources. Tasks include, where applicable:
- Deploying an application and updating scaling configuration, versions, and traffic splitting (GCP Documentation: Splitting Traffic)
- Deploying an application that receives Google Cloud events (e.g., Pub/Sub events, Cloud Storage object change notification events)
3.4 Deploying and implementing data solutions. Tasks include:
- Initializing data systems with products (e.g., Cloud SQL, Firestore, BigQuery, Spanner, Pub/Sub, Bigtable, Dataproc, Dataflow, Cloud Storage) (GCP Documentation: Initialization actions)
- Loading data (e.g., command line upload, API transfer, import/export, load data from Cloud Storage, streaming data to Cloud Pub/Sub) (GCP Documentation: Introduction to loading data)
3.5 Deploying and implementing networking resources. Tasks include:
- Creating a VPC with subnets (e.g., custom-mode VPC, shared VPC) (GCP Documentation: Using VPC networks)
- Launching a Compute Engine instance with custom network configuration (e.g., internal-only IP address, Google private access, static external and private IP address, network tags) (GCP Documentation: Creating instances with multiple network interfaces)
- Creating ingress and egress firewall rules for a VPC (e.g., IP subnets, network tags, service accounts) (GCP Documentation: VPC firewall rules overview)
- Creating a VPN between a Google VPC and an external network using Cloud VPN (GCP Documentation: Cloud VPN overview)
- Creating a load balancer to distribute application network traffic to an application (e.g., Global HTTP(S) load balancer, Global SSL Proxy load balancer, Global TCP Proxy load balancer, regional network load balancer, regional internal load balancer) (GCP Documentation: External TCP/UDP Network Load Balancing overview)
3.6 Deploying a solution using Cloud Marketplace. Tasks include:
- Browsing Cloud Marketplace catalogue and viewing solution details (GCP Documentation: GOOGLE CLOUD MARKETPLACE)
- Deploying a Cloud Marketplace solution (GCP Documentation: Creating Deployments with Google Cloud Platform Marketplace)
3.7 Implementing resources via infrastructure as code. Tasks include:
- Building infrastructure via Cloud Foundation Toolkit templates and implementing best practices
- Installing and configuring Config Connector in Google Kubernetes Engine to create, update, delete, and secure resources
4. Ensuring successful operation of a cloud solution (20%)
4.1 Managing Compute Engine resources. Tasks include:
- Managing a single VM instance (e.g., start, stop, edit configuration, or delete an instance) (GCP Documentation: Virtual machine instances)
- Remotely connecting to the instance
- Attaching a GPU to a new instance and installing CUDA libraries (GCP Documentation: Adding or removing GPUs)
- Viewing current running VM inventory (instance IDs, details) (GCP Documentation: Instance life cycle)
- Working with snapshots (e.g., create a snapshot from a VM, view snapshots, delete a snapshot) (GCP Documentation: Creating persistent disk snapshots)
- Working with images (e.g., create an image from a VM or a snapshot, view images, delete an image) (GCP Documentation: Images)
- Working with instance groups (e.g., set autoscaling parameters, assign instance template, create an instance template, remove instance group) (GCP Documentation: Instance groups)
- Working with management interfaces (e.g., Google Cloud console, Cloud Shell, Cloud SDK) (GCP Documentation: Cloud management tools)
4.2 Managing Google Kubernetes Engine resources. Tasks include:
- Viewing current running cluster inventory (nodes, pods, services) (GCP Documentation: GKE Dashboards)
- Browsing the container image repository and viewing container image details (GCP Documentation: gcloud container images list)
- Working with node pools (e.g., add, edit, or remove a node pool) (GCP Documentation: Node pools)
- Working with pods (e.g., add, edit, or remove pods) (GCP Documentation: Pod)
- Working with services (e.g., add, edit, or remove a service) (GCP Documentation: About Google Cloud services)
- Working with stateful applications (e.g. persistent volumes, stateful sets) (GCP Documentation: Deploying a stateful application)
- Managing Horizontal and Vertical autoscaling configurations
- Working with management interfaces (e.g., Google Cloud Console, Cloud Shell, Cloud SDK, kubectl) (GCP Documentation: Cloud management tools)
4.3 Managing Cloud Run resources. Tasks include:
- Adjusting application traffic splitting parameters (GCP Documentation: Splitting Traffic)
- Setting scaling parameters for autoscaling instances (GCP Documentation: Autoscaling groups of instances)
- Determining whether to run Cloud Run (fully managed) or Cloud Run for Anthos
4.4 Managing storage and database solutions. Tasks include:
- Managing and securing objects in and between Cloud Storage buckets (GCP Documentation: Moving and renaming buckets)
- Setting object life cycle management policies for Cloud Storage buckets (GCP Documentation: Object Lifecycle Management)
- Executing queries to retrieve data from data instances (e.g., Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Cloud Spanner, Cloud Datastore, Cloud Bigtable) (GCP Documentation: Querying Cloud Storage data)
- Estimating costs of a BigQuery query (GCP Documentation: Estimating storage and query costs)
- Backing up and restoring data instances (e.g., Cloud SQL, Cloud Datastore) (GCP Documentation: Restoring an instance)
- Reviewing job status in Cloud Dataproc, Cloud Dataflow, or BigQuery (GCP Documentation: Life of a Dataproc Job)
4.5 Managing networking resources. Tasks include:
- Adding a subnet to an existing VPC (GCP Documentation: Using VPC networks)
- Expanding a subnet to have more IP addresses (GCP Documentation: gcloud compute networks subnets expand-ip-range)
- Reserving static external or internal IP addresses (GCP Documentation: Reserving a new static external IP address)
- Working with CloudDNS, CloudNAT, Load Balancers and firewall rules
4.6 Monitoring and logging. Tasks include:
- Creating Cloud Monitoring alerts based on resource metrics
- Creating and ingesting Cloud Monitoring custom metrics (e.g., from applications or logs)
- Configuring log sinks to export logs to external systems (e.g., on-premises or BigQuery) (GCP Documentation: Exporting with the Logs Viewer)
- Configuring log routers
- Viewing and filtering logs in Stackdriver (GCP Documentation: Advanced logs queries)
- Viewing specific log message details in Stackdriver (GCP Documentation: Viewing logs (Classic))
- Using cloud diagnostics to research an application issue (e.g., viewing Cloud Trace data, using Cloud Debug to view an application point-in-time) (GCP Documentation: Error Reporting)
- Viewing Google Cloud status (GCP Documentation: Google Cloud Status Dashboard)
5. Configuring access and security (20%)
5.1 Managing identity and access management (IAM). Tasks include:
- Viewing IAM policies
- Creating IAM policies
- Managing the various role types and defining custom IAM roles (e.g., primitive, predefined and custom) (GCP Documentation: Basic concepts)
5.2 Managing service accounts. Tasks include:
- Creating service accounts
- Using service accounts in IAM policies with minimum permissions (GCP Documentation: Service accounts)
- Assigning service accounts to resources (GCP Documentation: Creating and enabling service accounts for instances)
- Managing IAM of a service account
- Managing service account impersonation
- Creating and managing short-lived service account credentials
5.3 Viewing audit logs
Preparatory Guide
There is no doubt that the moment we start preparing for any examination, we’re stuck between the two important questions. These include- which topic is the most important one and where to get all the reliable information. So, our main goal is to provide with such learning resources that you’re certified in the very first attempt. And, we promise you that if you work according to the given Google Associate Cloud Engineer Study Guide. Then, you becoming certified is certain.
Official Google Study Guide
Your first step in the preparation must be going through the Official Google Study Guide. The Google Associate Cloud Engineer exam guide is a valuable resource to carefully examine and understand all the exam objectives. Not to mention, you can uncover the various subtopics for the examination. The official certification webpage will let you go through various important aspects of the examination, such as format, duration, etc. Not only will this information aid in understanding the basic outline but also, layout the foundation of your preparation. Thereby making the first and foremost step.
Try Training
When it comes to training, there is none who can beat Google itself. Google cloud provides various extensive training courses. These are the on-demand training and instructor-led classes. Qwiklabs is the official partner of Google where you can easily begin your training. Further, the instructor-led training named “Architecting with Google Compute Engine.” With the help of this, candidates are provided with the presentation, practical labs, and demonstrations of the course undertaken. So, here is the list of different modules included in the Google Associate Cloud Engineer Training course-
- First of all, introducing the Google Cloud Platform.
- Secondly, Virtual Networks.
- After this, Virtual Machines.
- Also, Cloud Identity and Access Management.
- Not to mention, Data Storage Services.
- Further, Resource Management.
- Moreover, Resource Monitoring.
- Subsequently, Interconnecting Networks.
- Furthermore, Load Balancing.
- In addition, Autoscaling.
- Next, Infrastructure Automation with Google Cloud Platform APIs.
- Furthermore, Infrastructure Automation with Deployment Manager.
- Lastly, Managed Services.
This long list covers all the topics that one must be proficient with.
Hands-on practice
This exam is fashioned in such a way that it tests the technical skills associated with the job role. Take it from us, this by far is the best preparation for the exam. We highly recommend this. So, in case you feel you require more experience or practice, go for the hands-on labs available by Qwiklabs and the GCP free tier to enhance your expertise and skills.
100% security with Important Topics
It is very essential to prepare yourself with all the important topics to qualify the exam with flying colours. Therefore, we’re enlisting some of the important topics, you must be proficient in. So, here is the list of topics-
- IAM
- App Engine
- VPC (Networking)
- Projects
- Billing Accounts
- Compute Engine
- Cloud Storage (Object-based)
- Kubernetes Engine
- Databases
- Bigdata Tools
- Image-based Questions: Got 2 Questions
- Stackdriver
Practice Sets Provides Certification
Mark our words, all your preparation will be down the drain if you won’t go through the practice or the mock tests. Though this is the final step, remember this is the most crucial one too. So, make sure to practice as much as you can. Also, make sure to go through the reliable source only. As the market is already cluttered with so many opinions, so try to find someone who has prior experience in the same. And, you know that we’re always here to put you first. SO, CLICK HERE FOR GENUINE Google Associate Cloud Engineer Practice Tests
Now, that we are through with the preparatory guide. You must also know what are the benefits of this certification. Indeed, extra benefits never hurt, so in the next section let’s go through some of the benefits you will enjoy.
Benefits of Google Associate Cloud Engineer Exam
Extensive and thorough preparation for the examination study guide helps in attaining the certification easily. Apart from that, you’ll also enjoy the following benefits-
- First thing first, you gain association with Google Cloud Platform services and technologies.
- Secondly, attaining comprehensive hands-on experience with GCP tools and processes.
- Subsequently, a proven credential to authenticate the continuous learning and commitment.
- Further, this is globally recognised.
- Moreover, it is proof of the candidate’s capabilities as an associate cloud engineer on GCP.
- Last but not least, you will also encounter better career opportunities along with high salary.
Speaking of salary, we all wish for a greater salary with every new job role that we attain. In the next section, we’re discussing the salary of a Google Associate Cloud Engineer.
Salary of Google Associate Cloud Engineer
While choosing your career path, salary is the most important consideration. Therefore, we’re providing the salary of a Google Associate Cloud Engineer. With this being said, this will definitely, provide you with an extra edge that you need to qualify the certification.
As per various resource, the average Google Associate Cloud Engineer salary estimate is $127,890 per annum. The salary estimate varies between $68,500 and $173,000.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we would just tell you to relax for a bit now. We have discussed all the information regarding the Google Associate Cloud Engineer exam. Also, we have provided you with the study guide that will make your exam easy breezy. Remember, you’re just one step away from the certification. So, give your 100% and we are confident that it will be worth it.
GO GET CERTIFIED!
